Spring is here!

Last week I saw a Robin redbreast. They are migrating in east Texas. I am confident that we will have no more freezes. I planted some bulbs last week and expect to see them peek their blades up soon. The weather has been gorgeous for the past week except for two days ago when a horrid wind brought in dust from west Texas and made the sky brown for a couple of hours. A number of our neighbors have pieces of their fence missing. God pruned our trees and gave us some firewood with all the limbs that broke off in our front yard. The wind was just ridiculous. Come to think of it, it felt like an afternoon in Washoe Valley--or stagecoach--except their were trees to get their limbs broken.

I have two more days left of my night shift. It has been pretty easy to get through the nights. since the first week I haven't been drowsy during shift at all. I have had a lot of fun with the people on the team. Sometimes I get in trouble for talking too much--it is kind of like kindergarten that way--because if we are talking, we can't be counting. They give out awards for the most units scanned and for the most accurate scan of a $5 gift card for a convienience or fast food place. I have no hope of recieving such a thing.

Numbers and I just don't get along. When I took accounting, I would often have the right numbers in the right places but when I checked them, the columns never totalled like they were supposed to. It didn't matter if I was using my head or a calculator, it just didn't come up. I don't know what my actual figures are, but I know that whether I am auditing a section or someone is auditing a section I scanned, at least two per night of each fail to match up.

Time to get dinner made so I can eat before American Idol and be ready to leave for work as soon as it is over.

Love y'all!

One Down 2 to Go

I make it through my first week of night shift. We are busy throughout the night, and most of the nights we got out early than expected, so we went home about the time everyone was dragging. They have bowls of candy at every supervisors station to keep our energy up, I think is the premise. For me it totally backfired because I had too much of it the first night, and by the second night, I had a major sore throat with muscle fatigue and chills. I worked a lot slower than some of the others, but I kept on working. I pumped supplements and fluid and slept the entire day and felt better when it came time to work that night. I am still phlegmming and fighting, but I continue to do what needs to be done.

I mentioned to one of the guys I am working with that I had too much candy and, hence a sore throat. He noticed the same thing, himself a day later. He already knew about how high sugar content in foods immobilizes the immune system. I asked him how he knew. He learned it in a College biology class. Something to think about for those fighting illness. Still, there are caramel squares in the candy dish. How can I not take advantage of their availability?

I just need to make it through the next two weeks of nights. I think it will be just fine. I am kind of irritated, though because we are not getting overtime like they said I would. Our team is just too efficient. There will be less people on it this week. Maybe it will be harder and take longer.

Midnight Blogger

It is 12:21 as I begin my blog. I hope to stay up for some number of hours more. Tomorrow night, for the first time in my life, I work a night shift. I will be doing that for three weeks. I volunteered for the Bed Bath and Beyond inventory team. It pays overtime, and still allows me to be home when my kids are here--most of all it is only temporary.

I was hired part time, but I will have been paid overtime for two consecutive pay periods already because they need a lot of hours for inventory prep. I have been waking up at 4am for nearly 3 weeks already. I either work 5-3 of 6-3. I actually advocate 5 because, to me, there is no difference. 7 is a much better deal, because then I get to wake up my son for school. 8 is great because I get to wake him up AND take him to school, and make it to work with time to spare.

Extra hours and extra money is critical at this point, since Mike is still unemployed. We are excited however at some of the prospects that are developing. He has had a whole series of successful interviews with Microsoft. The benefits there are awesome.

For the first time since New Year's all the kids were here together. Speaking of New Years, Christmas was a disappointment to me. My kids were here until Christmas eve morning. Mike and I spent Christmas eve alone--which was actually really nice--and then his kids were here Christmas afternoon. New Year's eve I wanted to have a party for all the kids, including some friends over, but I didn't have time to organize it. By that night I was absolutely exhausted and we let the kids celebrate while we slept. The previous night, he and I had been up until 3am at a 25th wedding anniversary ball, put on by Theresa who took me on the cruise last spring. Mike and I had a fabulous time together. We laughed and he got along great with the rest of the cruise gang. We will certainly be joining them on future cruises. More than anything, I love falling in love with my husband. I was dancing like a crazy woman--forgetting that I was not 17 at a church dance. When they started playing Footloose, and my husband joined me like a fool, everyone knew we were a match made in heaven.

This weekend there was a primary activity. After that, we tried to get the kids to watch Superman Returns with us (11:30am) because it had to be returned. Nobody wanted to. They all wanted to go to the park, or a friend's house or skateboarding. It was a gorgeous day, so we didn't force them to watch TV. One child asked to play the xbox, another asked to play world of warcraft. Both were denied. We finally watched the movie at 6:00. Two of the kids were out before the first 1/2 hour of the movie. It was a nice weekend.